In the third row, Blackwood stood up slowly. He was in a dark suit, silver hair neat as always, legal folder in hand. He looked less like an attorney in that moment than a stage manager waiting for his cue. His face was composed, but I’d known him since I was twelve. There was satisfaction tucked into one corner of his mouth.
Becca turned half around. “Grant,” she whispered, and though the microphone didn’t catch it, the church was so quiet I heard every syllable. “What is she talking about?”
Grant wouldn’t look at her.
The stained glass above the altar spilled a deep red stripe across the floor near his shoes. It looked almost biblical. Or maybe I was just angry enough to start assigning symbolism to architecture.
I lowered my eyes to the second sheet in my hand.
“This isn’t how I wanted to honor my father today,” I said, and that part was true enough to ache. “He deserved peace. He deserved a room full of stories about the people he helped, the races he won, the impossible number of stray teenagers he somehow convinced to love sailing and college applications in equal measure.”
My throat tightened. I swallowed hard.